LWLies 80: The Sou­venir + 100 Mould-Break­ing British Films

Issue 80 of Lit­tle White Lies is pre­sent­ed to you in Kin­eRa­ma – an age-old cin­e­mato­graph­ic process which we have lov­ing­ly reviv­i­fied for these ful­ly-illus­trat­ed pages. We imag­ine you’ve got a few ques­tions stack­ing up in your mind, so allow us to both antic­i­pate and answer them.

When you receive this issue, you’ll find a spe­cial image decoder secure­ly attached to the inside front cov­er. For 15 years, LWLies has prid­ed itself on being a film mag­a­zine pow­ered by illus­tra­tion. This edi­tion is no dif­fer­ent, only the illus­tra­tions now move. Wher­ev­er you spot the Kin­eRa­ma logo, slow­ly move your decoder across the illus­tra­tions and watch as they spring to life. Please note: the only way you can expe­ri­ence the full, over­whelm­ing joys of Kin­eRa­ma is by hold­ing a phys­i­cal copy of LWLies 80 in your hands.

Anoth­er ques­tion you may have is, why would we do this? Let me answer that by draw­ing atten­tion to our lat­est cov­er film, The Sou­venir, the extra­or­di­nary new work by British writer/​director Joan­na Hogg. It’s a haunt­ing study of a young woman who begins to under­stand the true mean­ing of artis­tic expres­sion while locked with­in a test­ing roman­tic relationship.

Hogg is what you might refer to as an auteur – that is, a film­mak­er for whom artistry trumps com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty at every turn. That’s not to say her films are obscure or ​‘dif­fi­cult’, more that she works hard to reject cliché and tell sto­ries in her own unique way. By revis­it­ing Hogg’s body of work – from 2007’s Unre­lat­ed through to 2013’s Exhi­bi­tion via 2009’s Arch­i­pel­ago – we were moved to try and do some­thing dif­fer­ent with the mag­a­zine form – to show that you can trans­mit this infor­ma­tion in new and excit­ing ways.

On the cover…

This gor­geous por­trait of Hon­or Swin­ton Byrne, star of The Sou­venir, has been cre­at­ed by LWLies’ very own art direc­tor, Lau­rène Boglio. It’s a cov­er which also moves when viewed through the image decoder.

Artists fea­tured in this issue…

Elec­tra Sin­clair, Kat Him­mel, Stéphanie Sergeant, Scott Balmer, Taku­mi Kobayashi, Anna Wan­da Gogusey, John Devolle, Hay­ley Wells, Michu Benaim/​In House inter­na­tion­al.

Inside this issue…

The Art of Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty
The Sou­venir is a remark­able movie mem­oir that refresh­es tawdry notions of ​‘com­ing of age’ in cin­e­ma. Its direc­tor, Joan­na Hogg, and star, Hon­or Swin­ton Byrne, open up to Sophie Monks Kaufman.

Major Tom
Tom Burke’s stun­ning per­for­mance as the enig­mat­ic Antho­ny in The Sou­venir sug­gests we’ll be see­ing a lot more of the great Tom Burke. Adam Wood­ward meets him.

Exhi­bi­tion: 100 Mould-Break­ing British Films
Thir­ty LWLies con­trib­u­tors come togeth­er in cel­e­bra­tion of British cin­e­ma at a moment when Britain is going through some­thing of a rough patch. This is our search for rarely seen sub-genre known as the ​“British art­house film”, and the 100 titles that fea­ture on this count­down are all com­plete­ly unique exam­ples of pathfind­ing cin­e­ma at its finest.

Includes con­tri­bu­tions from: Mark Asch, Abbey Ben­der, Anton Bitel, Kam­bole Camp­bell, Megan Christo­pher, Jake Cole, Phil Con­can­non, Lil­lian Craw­ford, Rogan Gra­ham, Car­o­line Golum, Tom Hud­dle­ston, David Jenk­ins, Trevor John­ston, Ella Kemp, Aimee Knight, Ele­na Laz­ic, Manuela Laz­ic, Michael Leader, Mike McC­ahill, Iana Mur­ray, Christi­na New­land, Caitlin Quin­lan, Rox­anne Sanc­to, Jus­tine Smith, Nathan Smith, Philip­pa Snow, Matt Thrift, Matt Turn­er, Han­nah Wood­head and Adam Woodward.

The only ques­tion left to ask: how many have you seen?

In the back section…

Adam Wood­ward teas­es a zom­bie impres­sion out of Jim Jar­musch as they meet to dis­cuss The Dead Don’t Die; David Jenk­ins talks to French grande dame Emmanuelle Devos about her new film Amin; Lou Thomas hears how Peter Strick­land was inspired by 2000s British sit­coms for In Fab­ric; and David Jenk­ins dis­cuss­es the extra­or­di­nary cuck­old dra­ma Our Time with its writer, direc­tor and star, Car­los Reygadas.

Else­where, we cov­er the best new releas­es from July and August, includ­ing Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hol­ly­wood; Jaime Christ­ley and David Jenk­ins pick through the best home ents releas­es; while Han­nah Wood­head and Adam Wood­ward report back on a fruit­ful trip to the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

LWLies 80 is on gen­er­al sale 24 June. Sub­scribe today to ensure you nev­er miss an issue.